Commentary on developments in the endless dispute between evolution and creationism.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

O'Reilly, Again

One of my commenters has pointed out to me that the transcript of the O'Reilly segment I discussed yesterday is available online here. So now I can give you the exact quotes from the segment. We consider it in full:

O’REILLY: Top Story Tonight. Spurred on by the ACLU and other so-called freedom groups, a nationwide controversy has erupted over teaching Intelligent Design in public school biology classes. Intelligent Design is the belief that a higher power created the universe. Some Americans want it taught alongside evolution. In the Dover, Pennsylvania school district, teachers wouldn’t even mention Intelligent Design, so today the District Superintendent had to do it. Lawsuits are flyin’. Joining us today is Michael Grant, a Professor of Biology at the University of Colorado.

See, I can’t understand, as a former high school teacher myself, why you can’t just say “Well, some people believe there’s a deity and the deity formed the universe and things progressed from there?” What would be wrong with that, Professor?

This is the standard equivocation about the meaning of the term “Intelligent Design.” O'Reilly is using the term for the minimalist claim that there is some designing intelligence behind the universe. This allows him to paint his opposition as a bunch of crazy atheists. Of course, this minimalist claim has nothing to do with evolution at all.

I'm sure O'Reilly would not approve of telling students, say in a discussion of the geological causes of the recent tsunami, that some people conclude from events like this that the world is not superintended by a loving God.

In the Dover, PA case, ID refers to a specific collection of challenges to modern evolutionary theory. Those challenges should not be discussed (not favorably anyway) because they are wrong. The science teachers in Dover have enough integrity not to lie to their students, and that is why they refused to read the statement in question.

GRANT: Well, my view of what would be wrong with that is it’s not science. And that’s not the place to talk about those kinds of things. The proper place to talk about those kinds of issues is in comparative religion. It’s in the philosophy classes. Biology classes should be science.

Exactly right. After all, many people look at the facts of nature and conclude there is no God. Does O'Reilly want that to be mentioned?

O’REILLY: OK. But science is incomplete in this area of creationism, is it not?

GRANT: Science is always incomplete in all areas.

O’REILLY: Well, I don’t agree with that. Science is not always incomplete and I’ll give you an example. There are twenty-four hours in a day. Alright. That’s science. And there are four seasons. That’s science. So you can state things with certainty in biology or any other science you want. However, if I’m a student in your class and you’re telling me, well, there might have been a meteor or big bang or there might have been this or there might have been that, I’m gonna raise my hand like the wise guy I am and say “Professor, might there be a higher power that contributed to the fact that we’re all here?” and you say - what?

Of course, Grant gave the answer that any scientist would give. Whatever branch of science you are working in has open questions. That, after all, is why people continue to do research.

But O'Reilly's response makes it clear that he was losing his grip on reality. He seems to interpret Grant's statement to mean that science is just an endless mishmash of guesses and hypotheses, with anything like certainty being a hopelessly unattainable goal. Thus, in his mind he can prove Grant wrong by showing that there are certain facts in science.

Now, evolution by natural selection is as much a fact as anything else in science. By O'Reilly's definition, it would indded be “complete science.” But in O'Reilly's mind evolution is a grand theory about the origins of everything. Since there is most definitely uncertainty about that question, O'Reilly feels justified in bringing up God as a plausible hypothesis.

Compared to what is coming, these are the insights of a scientific genius.

GRANT: I say that’s something you need to question, you need to think about, you need to discuss with other people. You need to do that in the proper class. In the biology class we deal with science, with the natural world and what fits our conventional concepts of science.

O’REILLY: But, what if it turns out there is a God and He did create the universe and you die and then you figure that out? Aren’t you gonna feel bad that you didn’t address that in your biology class?

GRANT: Well, to quote a famous quote ...

O’REILLY (overtalks all words): ‘Cause then it would be science, wouldn’t it? You know, if tomorrow the deity came down and proved himself, then it would be science, wouldn’t it, sir?

Any thoughts on how to respond to something that stupid? I'm trying to picture Grant preparing himself for the interview, trying to anticpate things O'Reilly might say during the segment. I'll bet he didn't anticipate that one!

GRANT: If it meets the convention standards - whatever it is you’re referring to - meets science, then I certainly would be convinced. And, until and unless that happens, I’m going to go on teaching what I see is current science.

O’REILLY: Alright. See. I think this is a narrow-minded view, with all due respect, that you are holding. But I must point out to our viewers that most academics agree with the professor. Alright. It’s pinheads like me that cause trouble. Now. Cloning of human beings. It’s never been done that we know of. Would you agree with that?

And, sadly, I think a majority of the people agree with O'Reilly.

Basically, the problem is this: Science has been so successful, and religion so unsuccessful, at explaining the world and tending to people's physical needs that science is now the standard against which truth claims about nature are evaluated. Thus, if you want to make an assertion about the natural world and be taken seriously about it, you have to defend your assertion in scientific terms.

But for most people, God's existence is as much a fact of nature as anything else. Therefore, God should be part of science.

Most people couldn't care less about the day-to-day work of scientists. They neither realize nor care that actually the job of the scientist is to go into the lab or the field and come out with useful results. If you try to point out to them that theories based on the supernatural are not helpful, they give you a funny look. What helpful? It's true, therefore it's scientific.

Had Grant had more than two seconds to respond to O'Reilly's insanity I'm sure he would have pointed this out. That's what he had in mind, I suspect, in talking about conventional standards of science. But to O'Reilly and many of his viewers, talk of “conventional standards” is equivalent to setting up arbitrary rules for the purpose of keeping God out. That view is delusional, but no less common for that.

GRANT: To the best of my knowledge, it has not yet been done. That’s correct.

O’REILLY (overtalks the last 8 words): OK. Now. Do you not talk about cloning of human beings in biology class? Do you not talk about the possibility that may come about in the future?

GRANT: In certain special classes and the bioethics classes, we definitely do talk about that....

O’REILLY (overtalks last 3 words): Yeah. It’s not science, sir!!

GRANT: ...whether it could or should be done. It’s very much science.

O’REILLY: Yeah. It’s not science, is it?

GRANT: There’s an enormous amount of science in it.

O’REILLY: It’s not!

GRANT: Absolutely.

O’REILLY: Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! It’s not science. It hasn’t been done.

GRANT: Yes, it is.

O’REILLY: So, by your theory in the creationism deal, you shouldn’t talk about that at all, because it hasn’t been done, it hasn’t been proven, nothing’s happened there!

As is often the case, the transcript does not do justice to what actually took place. Those who watched the segment saw O'Reilly in full ridicule mode here.

More to the point, does anyone know what O'Reilly is talking about here? All Grant said previously was that there are certain conventional standards of science that guide researchers in their work. Where did O'Reilly get the nonsense about cloning not being science (whatever that means) because no one had done it yet? Had Grant said anything that could even be misinterpreted to mean that?

GRANT: That’s not the definition of science and I never said that was the definition of science - that it hasn’t been done and it hasn’t been proven. What I’m saying is that we use conventional information about what our best understanding of the natural world is at this point in time. Of course it can change. I can give you lots of examples of where we have to change. That’s the nature of science. It does not take a biblical or any particular source as unchanging truth. We continually test. We continually monitor. We continually change.

O’REILLY (overtalks last 6 words): I wouldn’t teach the Bible. I - see, I agree that I wouldn’t say “Look, you guys should read Genesis and do the Adam and Eve nuh” - if I were professor of biology, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t do that. But I would say “Look, there are a lot of very brilliant scholars who believe the reason we have incomplete science on evolution is that there is a higher power involved in this and you should consider it as a scientist.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, Professor. And I think the people like the ACLU, who don’t want you to mention it in your biology class, are the Taliban. I think THEY are the ones that are infringing on the rights of all American students by not allowing that to be at least considered. I’ll give you the last word.

O'Reilly has a lot of nerve. When a handful of carzy leftists go to a Bush protest and liken Bush to Hitler, O'Reilly wails about the cheapening of our discourse. On the same show we are discussing above O'Reilly took a PETA representative to task for their recent ad campaign comparing meat consumption to the Nazi holocaust. Too extreme, he said. Yet he thinks nothing of likening the ACLU to the Taliban. Just lovely.

Incidentally, loyal O'Reilly viewers will recognize the line “I'll give you the last word,” as O'Reilly-speak for “I'll let you say one more sentence before cutting you off and telling the world you're an idiot.

GRANT: I think it should be considered in the classes that I mentioned. But you don’t start from the premise that Dembski, who’s one of the leading members of the Intelligent Design group, says. [Reads] “As Christians, we know naturalism is false.” If you start from that premise ...

O’REILLY: Nah. I wouldn’t do that.

GRANT: ... you’ve abandoned science.

O’REILLY: Sure. I mean ..

GRANT: Well, that’s one of your leading Intelligent Design individuals.

O’REILLY: But it’s not me! And I’m sayin’ you guys are all wrong by not allowing a biology class to consider the universe in all the forms that it may take. Professor, we appreciate your point of view. Thanks very much.

As I said yesterday, these chat shows exist for the sole purpose of aggrandizing their hosts. What O'Reilly understands that many of his guests do not understand is that talking to his viewers is like to talking to babies: It doesn't matter what you say. All that matters is the tone you use. You will never be able to nail someone like O'Reilly because he works completely unfettered by any regard for the truth or the facts. All that matters is that he is the one talking most of the time and that his tone is one of complete confidence.

All of cable news and all of talk radio is like this. The only comforting aspect of this I can think of is that O'Reilly is by far the most successful cable host and he only gets about three million viewers a night.

12 Comments:

I find O'Reilly one of the most objectionable Fox New commentators, because of his feigned status as an "independent."

O'Reilly surely can't be so stupid as to fail to understand the difference between the number of hours in the day (a definition) and a theoretical system which aims to explain phenomena. After all, it is manifestly evident that every 24 hour period the sun appears to move across the sky, set, and rise again. If we chose to divide that period into 10 equal periods, we would have 10 hours in a day. If we chose to divide it into a 100 equal portions, we would have 100 hours in a day (assuming we called the divisions "hours," that is). Heck, if we divided it into 100 unequal periods (using some bizarre function to do the division in a consistent manner) we might still have a 100 hours in a day but a particularly useless metric for measuring time.

In contrast, a meaningful scientific theory would attempt to explain *why* the sun appeared to move across the sky in this period of time, regardless of how we measured it. The theory that has broad acceptance is that the earth rotates on its axis, causing the sun to appear to rise and set. Fortunately, we don't have to argue that the alternative theory not be taught in schools!

A perfect analogy to this division between a theoretical framework and trivial definition owould be the statement that there are 9,985 (or whatever current authorities recognize) species of birds in the world. Evolution, of course, is the theory that explains the diversity of bird (and other) species in the world. The point being that the exact number of extant bird (or beetle, sponge, etc.) species is trivia of limited meaning - a metric of biodiversity but little else - while the theoretical framework that explains the origin of this biodiversity is evolution, which has a deeper meaning. Likewise, the study of the distribution of this biodiversity relative to present day abiotic and biotic factors is the science of ecology, which also has theories to explain the distribution of biodiversity.

I would love it if students were exposed to the fact that all non-trivial aspects of science are ultimately provisional to a greater or lesser degree (that is, all theories that represent explanations for measured data regarding the world could ultimately be rejected by confirmed accurate observations that do not agree with the predictions of the theory). Despite the provisional nature of scientific knowledge we owe it to students at all levels to teach them the set of theories that the vast majority of the scientific community embraces. It would be absolutely wonderful if the students were able to differentiate between the trivial (it is a 'fact' that there are 12 inches in a foot and 100 centimetres in a metre, is it not!) and the non-trivial (the observations suggesting the existence of undetectable mass in galaxies might reflect the existence of unobserved weakly-interacting stable particles that resulted from the breaking of a possible symmetry between bosons and fermions).

If they could learn something about the degree of corroboration of various theories (e.g., the general theory that organisms share common ancestors is very well corroborated, the specific theory that animals and fungi form a clade is somewhat well corroborated, the specific theory that eukaryotes arose by the fusion of genetic material from a crenarchaote, a delta-proteobacterium, and an alpha-proteobacterium -- published as the 'syntrophic hypothesis' -- is pretty darn speculative) it would be truely wonderfull! I doubt that I schools will be able to teach science with anything approaching this level of sophistocation if we have to keep fighting pseudoscience like creationism.

Then again, maybe O'Reilly really does believe that the fact that there are 24 hours in the day is top-notch science. If so, he has made an excellent case for improving the science education in this country!

im a student at a college taking my first science class in biology. I decided to look on the net under Evolution to better understand it. There seems to be two groups of scientist on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to creation and evolution. One side sees the sciences as a way to understand how the universe works under the notion that God created it. The other how the universe came to be without a God. Evolution is the only viable way to explain how humans came to be on the earth without the explaination of a higher power. The problem i have with the Evolutionary hypothesis or theory is that it cannot be proved. The idea of a big bang starting the hole process that creates life on the planet. From slime to fish to mammal to ape to manape to man, while no other animal appears to be mutating from you form to another or found to be midway thru the process is mathematically harder to believe than that a higher order or being created it. Example: If you found a spacecraft in the mountains would you say it had evolved from the minerals over time and try to make up some outlandish hypothesis of its natural creation or would you say a higher power created it. To think of the mathematical odds of it happening accidentally would be crazy. Yet how much more complex is the world around us and that of the human body and even more so the mind. I enjoy the idea of the sciences but to create theories out of unproven and mathematically impossible hypothesis to try and disprove that there is a God. If you dont believe me look up some info on mathematical probabilities or odds or what ever fancy word you've come up for it. Simply ask them the odds of the big bang creating life on earth as it is today vs. me accidently gaining superpowers and becomming spiderman. Which according to evolutionary terms might happen in a couple million or billion years. Personally i would like to think my life is not some cosmic accident with no future but death. I would like to think i have a higher more devine purpose. Otherwise WHAT IS THE POINT OF LIFE. The pursuit of knowledge... of self, nature, the universe. To gain wealth,fame,power,success. What is the point of it all if you die and no longer exist in this world or another one. If science thinks it has truely discovered the real creation of life on earth and there is no God or higher order in the world, then it should be a day of sorrow and mourning for all hope is lost.

Anonymous #2 - I hope you keep reading. There is much to learn on the subject of evolution, and if you do continue to study the subject and keep an open mind, I think you will be surprised by what you encounter.

I hope the poster who is looking at evolution for the first time won't confuse the theory on the origin of the universe with the theory of evolution. Darwin talked about the development of life, not how it came to be in the first place. That's a completely different theory. While the theory of some divine creation in the first place is not incompatible with evolution (so says some Pope, I forget which one), it's not science.

The Digital Life Lab at Caltech has free downloads of Avida: "a digital world in which simple computer programs mutate and evolve" as discussed in this month's Discover; faster and more informative than a petri dish. They explain the relationship between the program and different models of evolution on the site.

My friend who studies with the Jesuits says that "when faith and reason contradict, there's a fault in one of them." I wish she had a talk show. She's got much better hair than O'Reilly.

Can"t stand B.O'Reilly, he tries to intimidate people. He can't know everything , doesn't know everything. Always wants to be in control. I use to watch him when he was on another program, can't think of it now, I really did enjoy him, I very seldom watch him now.The transcript that is available to day, I happened to have seen it.

I hope the second anonymous poster has continued to read material on evolution. Perhaps I could share some insights that might be useful (or at least somewhat thought provoking). I would break this reply into three parts - first, a discussion of whether evolution has been "proven," second, a discussion of the distinction between big bang cosmology and biological evolution and the fact that both are compatible with some forms of theism, and third, a discussion of the "point" of life that some atheists are able to find.

Regarding the first point, it is inaccurate to say there are two camps of scientists, one of which believes in evolution and one of which does not. The "camp" that disbelieves evolution does so almost exclusively for extrascientific reasons - that is, because their belief in a *particular* form of theism makes them attempt to find problems with evolution. For that reason, the set of problems that have been "found" are disconnected and largely irrelevant (they are not actual problems or they can be accomodated with modest changes to minutia in the broad theory of evolution). For that reason, creationism is not a *scientific* alternative to evolution.

It is actually quite readable. Hopefully, it will at least give you a broader perspective on the ways scientists are thinking about some of the big picture issues. I would compare the status of evolutionary biology to the status of a search for quantum gravity. Everybody agrees that gravity can be described using an inverse-square law in a certain broad range. Modifications may be necessary under very extreme conditions (short distances, extreme gravitational fields like black holes) and these modifications may be very interesting, but they won't change the basic inverse-square law or the fundamental geometric interpretation of gravity as space-time curvature that Einstein was responsible for. Likewise, virtually all biologists (including the *majority* of theist biologists) agree that evolution has occurred and that natural selection has played an important role. They are trying to fill in some of the remaining (very interesting) details.

Big bang cosmology is quite well accepted, but less so than the idea of biological evolution. Modifications of the basic big bang cosmology are necessary, and some of the most popular variants involve inflation (an idea proposed by Alan Guth and others, Guth wrote a book on the history of this idea in the late '90s). However, there are still a number of issues that need to be worked out before the idea of a big bang with inflation is as well accepted as the theory of biological evolution. A search for "echos" of primordial gravity waves will soon be feasible, and if they are found another "nail" in the structure supporting inflation may be added. If they are not found, inflation may be in serious trouble. There are alternative ideas based upon the collision of n-dimensional "branes" in a sort of hyperspace called the "bulk" - though these ideas are much more speculative than the well developed ideas of inflation. That doesn't mean that some variant of these ideas may be right and inflation wrong, though.

Some actually see the big bang as very compatible with a theistic position, since it does postulate a beginning to our universe. That is not *necessarily* the only interpretation of the big bang+inflation - variants called "eternal inflation" suggest the universe (in the broad sense) has always existed and specific subregions (our detectable universe being one of these subregions) coming and going.

Neither biological evolution nor big bang cosmology are incompatible with a theistic position, unless one *also* postulates that the God invoked by a particular form of theism did not use these mechanisms to bring forth the universe and life within the universe. Deism - the belief system of many of America's founding fathers and many of my unitarian friends - would be quite consistent with both biological evolution and big bang/inflationary cosmology. Likewise, the Roman Catholic church has accepted both positions (I know this is true for evolution, and I believe it is true for the big bang - I suspect the specifics of inflation have not registered on the Catholic churches radar).

Although evolution does not necessarily contradict a theistic position, it is also compatible (obviously) with an atheistic position. However, it does not in any way DEMAND an atheistic position. If you went to a unitarian church I suspect everybody there would be an evolutionist (in the sense of believing in evolution) and I once accompanied a friend to an Episicapalian service where the priest clearly believed in evolution.

Although I certainly have theist friends (including one very devout Baptist, though I have to admit that most of my friends who attend church are unitarians) I am personally an atheist. I disagree regarding the pointlessness of life if there is no afterlife. How much more tragic is an unnecessary life if there is no afterlife? After all, if there is an afterlife the death of an innocent due to war or crime will send the innocent to an afterlife that is - if the Christianity or Islam are to be believed - better than this mortal coil. If atheists are correct, that person's life has been lost forever, and they are not in a better place. So most atheists would like to make this world a better place.

Remember, that religious belief can lead one to good by giving one the faith to perservere through hardship to achieve a better world, as it did for Martin Luther King or Ghandi, or it can lead one to snuff out the lives of infidels while sacrificing one's own life, as it did for the 9/11 attackers. Steven Weinberg once said that "Without religion, good people will do good things and evil people evil things, but it takes religion to make good people do evil things." (I may be mangling the quote a bit - I believe it was in the afterward of his classic science book "The First 3 Minutes" and I know it is reprinted in "Science and its Cultural Adversaries" - but I'm certain I've captured the spirit of the quote). Perhaps if we all - theists and atheists alike - worked on that small area of common ground we have (a desire for peace, justice, and equal rights) the world would be a better place.

As things are, I am pessimistic about our future. The technology to commit murder on a scale that would frighten even the worst people in our history now exists. Indeed, the potential for either nuclear or biological terror or error only increases as we allow ourselves to ever more be divided by our religions. If two Abrahamic faiths cannot find common ground (Islam and Christianity) what hope is there for finding additional common ground? However, there are two things I am confident of - first, if the button that can destroy us all is pushed, it will NOT be an atheist who pushes it; and second, some of those jailed for protesting the insane course we are on will be atheists. It is for those people - and their theistic colleagues of conscience - that we should try to live and *make* a better future. As Dylan said, "you don't count the dead when God is on your side."

1. O'Riley and like speakers may have big, self-aggrandizing egos, but they do things like this to please and secure their market. I bet that at least 80% of Fox News watchers are a) creationists and be feel b) they are oppressed and frustrated because their ideas cannot be taught as science to their kids while something they are outraged by, evolution, is. The media is not a search for truth, but a search for market share. O'Reilly validates them their feelings and in return they keep their eyeballs on his show.

2. The problem of "intermediate species" is the biggest red herring in the scientific design bag tricks. We are all intermediate creatures on the way to evolving into something else under the forces of the environment, genetic isolation, and random mutation. A good book for a lay person to see how species come about from other species (and then go extinct) is David Quanmem's "Song of the Dodo."

3. As a Theist who accepts Darwinismlso a Neo-Darwinist, the real problem that evolution presents is a problem that pre-existed it, the problem of Evil and God's role in its prensence in the world.

4. Which brings us to number 4 and way "enlightened" folks like to blame religion for human evil, particularly large scale killing. As Eric Hoffer, in his book "The True Believer" pointed out it appears that the will to belive in something ls part of the human character. He himself was an atheist, but he did not distinguish between mass killings done by religiuous fanatics from those done by those who had accepted basically an atheistic doctrine (Communism and Nazism and other forms of racial supremacy). It was the intense religious reformism that animated the anti-slavery movement in the 19th century. It was an allegedly scientificly based rationalism, adopting a vulgar Darwinism, that breathed life into racism in the second half of the 19th century, justifying Jim Crow in America and Imperialism in Africa and Asia (read Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Jack London to see how great minds condoned what we now regard today as evil and beyond the pale).

5. Since the 1960s America has been drifting away science, from standards in the school, and a corrosive skepticism against all human authority (which on the flip side causes people to long for something rock solid to believe in and provide guidance on the choices in their lives (and to forgive them their mistakes when they screw up).

6. I grew up getting a sectarian education (Catholic School), and somehow survived it to think and reason. Voltaire somehow overcame his Jesuit education. But the fact is Voltaire got a good education from the Jesuits and it appears that millions of Americans are no longer getting a good one. A heretical thought: perhaps the public schools would get more support if a substantial portion of the population no longer regarded them as the enemy, that a non-sectarian prayer and statements before Biology class that: "Many Evangelical Christians don't believe in biological evolution. However this class is not a philosphy class or theology class, and it will teach theprinciples of biology on how current species function and how they and past species came about in a process called Evolution" would help remove this subject from the public debate.

It was an allegedly scientificly based rationalism, adopting a vulgar Darwinism, that breathed life into racism in the second half of the 19th century, justifying Jim Crow in America

Lest you forget, Jim Crow thrived in the "Bible belt."

Some of the staunchest proponents of Jim Crow were fundamentalist Christians - i.e. the same brand of Christians who use the Bible to justify their prejudices today. Their legacy continues in the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who also use the Bible to conserve prejudice and oppose social change.

Yes, it is true that reformist Christians were part of abolition and civil rights. But, reformist Christians are hardly welcomed in fundamentalist Christian circles - not then; and certainly not now. Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Rev. Barry Lynn of AU (to name a few) are reformist/progressive Christians that are regularly denigrated and accused of not being "real Christians" by the likes of Falwell, Robertson, Kennedy, Dobson, et. al.

I suspect in another 100 years, when Falwell and Robertson are long dead and social progress has been achieved in spite of their efforts and the efforts of their followers, we will see a revision of history that says Christians were at the forefront of working towards equality for homosexuals, protecting the environment and funding stem cell research. That's not to say there won't be a new generation of religious reactionaries to fill their shoes (there always are). But, fortunately, there are far more people less afraid of change and more averse to religion-inspired prejudice, that such cultural forces are rendered impotent in the long run.